First of all, let me introduce you to my current PvP situattion.

I PvP as a Shadow Priest with 20/0/41 Spec, 415 Resilience, 11k HP self-buffed and 839 Spell Damage. My gear is full Merciless, Brutal gloves with all Vindicator except boots. Not all my gear is properly enchanted yet so there still is a lot of rooms for improvement.

I have a Rogue partner in my 2vs2 team. For his stats please visit his Armory link. For the lazy, I’m just gonna tell you he’s better geared than me.

Now, let’s get to the problem. We can’t get past 1500 rating. Yeah, 1500. And I really have no idea why. Well, I could blame it on the lack of skill and I might be right. But we read tactics, make plans and even if we apply them, we still lose. Double melee teams practically 1-shot me. Teams with a Hunter in them are almost a 80% lose (damn those pillars, damn them). And don’t even get me started on Resto Druids. Funny thing is, we win against Mage/Rogue teams, which should supposedly be the hardest team to beat! Guess this only applies higher in the rankings, eh?

Don’t get me wrong, we still win. We had a few good fights which got us over 20 points/win. But at the end of the day, the balance is usually equal between wins and loses.

I’m frustrated. Last season we started the team 2 weeks before it ended, and we got to 1600 with me having 200 Resilience! Is the start of S4 to blame really? Are we meeting way more skilled and geared teams, even at this low braket (1443 at the time I write this)? I have no idea, but it’s really frustrating. Guess what we have to do is keep playing and keep on improving out game style.

Another dilemma I have is that of my head enchant. I’m faced with 2 options:

Glyph of Power

which was, until 2.4 the standard enchant for a Shadow Priest for a head item, or

Glyph of the Gladiator

which is a really interesting choice.

Let’s compare the two for a second, shall we?

Glyph of Power gives 22 Spell damage and 14 Spell hit rating. Now, we all know that the Spell hit rating cap for PvP is 38 (or >3%). Replacing it with Glyph of the Gladiator means the loss of Spell hit, but this can be easily contered by geming Greater Dawnstonex2 and actually gaining 2 Spell hit rating. If we do this, we lose 16 or more Resilience (because yellow slots should be always filled with Mystic Dawnstone or better). But it doens’t make any difference, because we counter this with the 20 Resilience the Gladiator Glyph gives us.

In conclusion, replacing Glyph of Power with Glyph of the Gladiator takes us to:

• losing 22 Spell Damage;
• gaining 2 Spell hit rating;
• gaining 4 Resilience;
• gaining 20 Stamina;

assuming that we replaced Mystic Dawnstonex2 with Greater Dawnstonex2.

Is this a fair trade? For me it is. I’m struggling in lower brakets, where survability is everything. So looking back and making a comparison between the 2, I’ll go for Glyph of the Gladiator no doubt.

Only thing left now is to get Revered!